Charles Furneaux (TV producer)

Charles Furneaux (born 1957[1]) is a British television producer. He began his career as an Assistant Producer with the BBC becoming a Commissioning Editor at Channel 4 in 1994. Furneaux then went to Talkback Thames in 2003 as Head of Specialist Factual and Documentaries resigning in 2007 to manage his own production company, Kaboom Film & TV.[2]

Award-winning productions of Furneaux include The Natural History of the Chicken, which won an Emmy Award in the category of 'Outstanding Science and Nature Programming- Long Form' in 2002.[3] Touching the Void won BAFTA's 2004 Alexander Korda award for the outstanding British film of the year.[4][5] The Shooting of Thomas Hurndall, in 2009, won two BAFTA Awards and one Monte Carlo Golden Nymph Award, and the documentary Treblinka: Inside Hitler's Secret Death Camp won a Cine Golden Eagle Award in the History category of the Televised Documentary & Performance Division in 2014.[6][7] Furneaux also produced Diana: In Her Own Words, which broadcast on 6 August 2017 and became Channel 4's "most-watched documentary since 2014", peaking with 4.1 million viewers.[8]

Furneaux is a former participant in the Up series, an ongoing documentary series that follows the lives of fourteen British citizens in seven-year intervals, beginning when they were seven years old in 1964. Furneaux, one of the fourteen, declined to participate in the series after the 21 Up episode, broadcast in 1977.[1][9] Allison Pearson, writing for The Telegraph, reports that Michael Apted, the director of the second and subsequent installments of the Up series, alleged a Furneaux lawsuit aimed at "remov[ing] Charles’s likeness from the archive sequences in 49 Up".[9] This reportedly occurred during an on-stage interview at London's National Film Theatre in December 2005, where Apted also reportedly commented on the irony, that as a documentary maker himself, Furneaux was the only one who refused to continue.

Furneaux has also participated in one of the original television series in which a viewer was encouraged to voice their opinions regarding current television programmes, Right to Reply, in 1998.[10]

Filmography

Television
Year Title Role Notes and source
2013 Treblinka: Inside Hitler's Secret Death Camp Executive Producer Television documentary, directed by Alex Nikolic-Dunlop.[11][12]

References
  1. Radio Times Staff (14 May 2012). "56 Up: Michael Apted on the Documentary Series that's Spanned Five Decades". RadioTimes.com. Retrieved 2 December 2019. It all began in 1964 with Seven Up!, a one-off edition of Granada Television’s World in Action, which was directed by a Canadian, Paul Almond, but shaped by a fresh-faced young researcher, a middle-class Cambridge graduate called Michael Apted. / “It was Paul’s film,” says Apted now, “but he was more interested in making a beautiful film about being seven, whereas I wanted to make a nasty piece of work about these kids who have it all, and these other kids who have nothing.” / A pause. [Michael Apted continues.] “But maybe I’m deluding myself. They might think, ‘Oh good, someone new. We’re fed up with grumpy old Michael.’” / Certainly, the relationship has had its ups and downs. Several of the original 14 have withdrawn from one or more of the films and one, Charles Furneaux, opted out completely after 21 Up. “He’s now a documentary film-maker himself [he was executive producer of Touching the Void], which I find particularly hard to swallow,” says Apted. / “He actually tried to get himself removed from the earlier films, too, but he’s integral to the famous ‘posh boys three’ shot [the prep school boys interviewed together in Seven Up!] and Granada told him to take a flying jump.
  2. Kaboom Staff (19 June 2016). "About / Kaboom Film & TV". KaboomTV.co.uk. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  3. "National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences Prewsents 23rd Annual News and Documentary Emmy Awards" (PDF). cdn.emmyonline.org/ (Press release). 11 September 2002.
  4. BBC Staff (15 February 2004). "Bafta Awards 2004: The Winners". BBC.co.uk. BBC News. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  5. Plunkett, John (17 March 2004). "Talkback Poaches C4 Executive". The Guardian. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
  6. BAFTA Staff (28 December 2011). "Television Awards Winners in 2009". BAFTA.org. Retrieved 7 June 2019.
  7. Cine Staff (29 December 2014). "2014 CINE Golden Eagle Award Recipients". Cine.org. Archived from the original on 29 December 2014. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  8. Kaboom Staff (2019). "Latest update—Diana: In Her Own Words". KaboomTV.co.uk. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  9. Pearson, Allison (16 May 2012). "Seven Up!: A tale of two Englands that, shamefully, still exist". The Daily Telegraph. London. Retrieved 8 August 2012. [Pearson, writing about Apted, but not quoting him.] For me, most telling of all is that Charles Furneaux, one of the three Kensington prep-school boys, has refused to take part since 21 Up. When Charles grew up, he became, guess what? A TV producer. In 2005, Apted revealed that Furneaux had attempted to sue him when he refused to remove Charles’s likeness from the archive sequences in 49 Up. [Pearson continues, editorialising.] What does it tell us when a man who has made his fortune in TV refuses to put his own life on the line for the medium’s greatest monument? That working-class people are fodder for posh producers, who jealously guard their own privacy?
  10. BFI Staff (21 February 1998). "Right to Reply". BFI.org. Archived from the original on 25 September 2015. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  11. "Charles Furneaux". BFI.
  12. "Treblinka: Inside Hitler's Secret Death Camp (2013)". BFI.

Further reading and viewing
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